Adventures in the Rainforest

"Think of Heaven in a movie, then think about the frozen food section of a White supermarket... its damn near the same thing!"
-- Chris Rock (Bigger and Blacker)

I´m in the jungle city of Puerto Maldonado. Its hot and humid. I now know why most people relax during this time (1-3ish) -- its too hot to be outside. It rains frequently here, but not for long usually.

How did I get here?

I woke up at 540 on the morning of the 29th, and packed my remaining belongings. I left my large pack at the hostel in Cusco, not wanting to lug it around the jungle as I had the mountains. I exchanged my waterproof stuff sack´s sleeping bag for clothes, carabeenered it to my day pack, and had all I was to bring on this journey. Now that I´m a real backpacker I wonder if I can buy shares in Mountain Equipment Co-op?

I was told by the hostel´s attendant, Delfina, whom I´ve come to know from staying there so much, that the travel company called and said I would be picked up at 610, and to wear something warm. They didn´t come at 610. They didn´t come at 630. Actually, they called at 645 and where there at 650. The office had only given them the street name and the name of the hostel, not the number, so they couldn´t find the place up in San Blas -- despite another of the four members of the tour group staying on the same street!

This company, Manu Nature Tours, is the most reputable tour operator for the entire jungle region, and herein lies some insights into the state of professionalism in Peru. The aforementioned mix up in pick up was coupled with a fairly large discreptancy in the itinerary I paid for, and the services I received. On day 3 I was told we´d be visiting the Macaw Clay Lick in the afternoon to see nearly a hundred Macaws eating salt out of the mud. This didn´t happen. I was also told there would be the option to pay a little extra on site and go canopy climbing. This option was not available once I was in the jungle. I was given a list of not included costs, then my tour guide dropped us off at a store on day 2 and told us we had to buy rubber boots, which hadn´t been on said list. I didn´t want to but I did and I paid 27 soles. Not much, but these things add up. Did I end up needing the boots? Not really. Would I have taken them if they were given to me for free? Sure. More on that later.

The person in sales who I spoke with at the Cusco office, Evelyn, wasn´t exactly informed, and couldn´t exactly speak English. This latter part isn´t really a problem, I don´t expect anyone here to speak English -- but the tour company could have easily gotten someone to translate, I was after all thinking of paying them about 900USD. Evelyn didn´t know how to handle traveller´s cheques, which seems to me like it wouldn´t be an issue for a professional company. Though the banks were only 7 blocks up the street I wasn´t going to go change my cheques and carry 900 dollars cash in Cusco. Not for any length of journey would this have been wise. They also weren´t taking Visa -- our machines have been down for a while I was told. How did they expect me to pay then? Unmarked bills? Anyways, they ended up charging me a comission on the cheques and I had to accompany a sketchy sketchy guy who I guess owns the company to the bank to ensure he got his greenbacks. The comission I paid was of course greater than the comission he paid at the bank himself, so they skimmed me for a bit more. My main problem was with the itinerary disceptancy, and I am unsure at present what I´m going to do about it. I´m not sure if any company here in Peru has ever given any type of refund, partial or otherwise. But all this above does give you some insight into the business practices here (remember my experience with StarPeru planes?). I went to LAC dollar one day to change a couple cheques, and as my lonely planet guide had told me, there was no comission for this. The rate on the chalkboard was the rate I got, the cheques were treated as US cash going to Soles, as they should be. I went back another day to the same bank, and a different teller charged me a couple soles comission on my exchange. I asked him what the deal was, he told me their was a comission on traveller´s cheques. I´m willing to mix it up with some of the locals, and I have, but this wasn´t that important a moment to, so I gave him a bit of lip and left. These are reputable banks by the way, like our TD or CIBC.

Anyways I hopped into the van and met my compatriots, average age, 64.33. First was Caroline, a loudspoken Kentuckian living in Savanna, Georgia and working at a university there. Then there were Carol and Colin, a kindly, sharpwitted, if stereotypically English couple who live on the south coast of the UK. Both had recently retired it seemed. We set off from Cusco south on the highway towards Puno, for about an hour, making a quick stop at the gas station.

There we turned east, literally into the side of the mountains, and began to climb. We climbed and climbed -- and the road was nuts. Apeshit some might say. They aren´t really roads, that´s the thing. They are in the process of building real roads right now! So the real roads aren´t here yet. What we travelled on was the side of the mountain dug into by farmers to move cattle. For most of the time, if the van had gone over the side, that would have been it. The most ridiculous parts of this journey were when the road was perpendicularly intersected by a stream or waterfall flowing down the side of the mountain. There aren´t bridges. There are just rocks now with water flowing through them, and whether 20cm high or 3/4 of a meter high our Toyota drove straight through them -- slowly mind you, we were on the side of a mountain. There were other navigation concerns, often of the bovine variety. Nevermind the difficulty encountered when another vehicle is passing the other way. The drivers have to back up/move forward to a spot along the path (often several hundred meters in one direction) where a suitable width to cross paths can be found.

Driver´s in Peru also have a fascinating safety practice (perhaps to counteract the absence of seatbelts). It involves copious honking. A driver will honk repeatedly when there is any object also on the road ahead of him in his field of vision...be it dog, chicken, turkey, family of pigs, cattle, goat, old lady, cyclist (of motored or human powered variety), bus, collectivo, truck, merchant, or beggar. This makes for a lot of honking but it by no means disposes of all the scenarios under which the driver will honk. Honking is necessary whenever one is turning a corner on these mountain (or later jungle) roads. Since all the corners are blind (by virtue of the blockading geography) head on collisions of two unwarned vehicles will happen anytime they simultaneously face the corner from opposite directions. Obviously, I was happy this practice took place. I just wish we could give the pigs´ ears a bit of a rest.

After a time we crossed into the high Andes, and stopped at a preIncan funery. Nothing spectacular. Then back on the van. I learned that Caroline had been robbed in Truijo (sic) earlier in her trip, a man had ripped her camera off her wrist and dove into a cab. I neglected to mention that being around old tourists was one of my employed robbery defense mechanisms.

Our guide, Suzanna, was excellent. She was a keen birdwatcher, and had eyes for all types of flora and fauna. On day one we encountered mostly the former, and I wasn´t too excited. I knew there was a small, perhaps 2% chance, of seeing a spectacled bear as we drove around the highlands and later that day, the cloud forest. No such luck. I was also the only one not to have sported binoculars for the trip (they should be included of course). Not to say I wasn´t told they were included, I knew to expect their absence, but they were simply too expensive to buy or rent in Cusco in my view. That, plus my camera has mad zoom, I told myself. Not to mention wearing my new glasses is actually a homomorphic function to that of donning binoculars. Anyways, when it was really necessary, I borrowed Suzanna´s for a moment.

We broke for lunch at a small Colonial town, the highest town in the country, around 4300m I believe. There we happened into a small communal bakery, where in a giant stone oven locals would bring their ingredients to make bread. Bread was also made there by the building´s inhabitants -- we got some fresh and it was delicious. We ate this type of bread throughout the trip and I ate a lot of it, mostly because it was closer to a doughnut than bread. I also spied (and photod) a bunch of cuy (guinea pigs) baking in a row in said giant oven. Quite a sight, though I can still wait to eat one.

From there we drove downhill, into what is known as the Cloud Forest. The road conditions were similar, but now we had two additional factors: mist making the road invisible, and formerly washed out portions of the road (victims of mud/landslides). Carol mentioned her fear of heights a bit previous to this and that fear was exercised vigourously. There were some close calls I´ll say.

We arrived at Cloud Forest Lodge sometime around 330 -- we had hurried to get there in advance of 4 because we were going birdwatching at that time. Birdwatching? I had no experience with it and wasn´t, to be perfectly honest, interested in it at the time. All my worries, and tensions from the long journey, were quickly dispelled when I saw the lodge. It was easily the best room I´ve stayed at so far in my journey. The lodge perched over a raging river, complete with scenic rapids, under the backdrop of densely vegetated mountainside. My room, indeed each room, had its own balcony that overlooked the river. Two beds, and my own bathroom with hot water... this was paradise. I had been under some impression that I had been splurging up to this point, or that I already knew what the upperclass lifestyle might be like. Those were illusions not to last. After one of the best showers I´ve ever had I walked down to the lobby (complete with glass ceiling) to lounge in plush couches surrounded by cedar decor, wearing the soft cotton slippers provided. Then, they served up an incredible, 3-course, cuisine meal which would typically be found in the kind of Canadian restaurant I´ve never been to.

Before said shower and meal we had headed to this shack on the side of the road from which to birdwatch. Which bird were we trying to watch? Its name was the Cock of the Rock. I´ll leave you to your own imagination. Apparently at this same location every day at 4, the males will gather to dance and show off for the females. Males sport birght red plumage, and as our Birds of Peru guide stated in formal, terse, scientific tones, "permanently erect" head feathers. Now I don´t claim to be Edward Burtinsky, or Justin Wu, or Steve Irwin for that matter, but I managed to snap this photo of the bird, which I think turned out alright. Birdwatching wasn´t bad.



Around dessert (plantanes with icing sugar) Suzanna told us we had to wake up at 4 the next morning... and that there wouldn´t be any power in the lodge tonight, the generator was down. So when the itinerary tells you you have to wake up at the very early hour of 6... prepare to be shocked. As for the no power, I would never complain to Suzanna in the face of the meal we just got served and the room I was enjoying...but it was another notch on the lack of organization of the company back in the city. That plus I couldn´t charge my camera for the next day and would have to ration battery as we headed into the jungle.

I stayed up (until 830) drinking beer and eating popcorn while talking to two girls my age (the only other group we encountered) taking a trip of their own. Samantha and I can´t remember her name, from Boston and Chicago respectively, were both quite good looking. I managed to crack a couple jokes and we all headed to bed (different ones of course). What I wrote earlier about fleeting meetings remained true.

I woke up on my own at 345, though I was in no mood to leave the lodge. Breakfast was spectacular, and I filled up on this yogourt drink they served us. Think Yop, strawberry flavour, only a little bit more viscous and tastier. In other words, heaven. This was to prove my undoing, as I filled up on it before we proceeded back to the Toyota for the bumpy trip down the mountain into the jungle, along the "road." After about 2 hours I was thinking to myself that I was going to pony up the money to buy a plane back, because there was no way I would last on a 15-20 hour bus ride to Cusco at the rate my stomach was going. About 5 minutes after that I asked Suzanna if we were going to stop soon... everything had been very silent up to this point (it being before sunrise) and I guess when they looked at me I had a white-greenish complexion and they stopped immediately. I got out of the van and dry heaved a little bit, but mostly just hunched over with my hands on my knees and breathed deeply trying to get the my spinning world and stomach to come to rest. While the others inspected the local flora I popped another Pepto and Suzanna gave me the local treatment. What she said was alcohol (it was something alcohol based I think), she rubbed all over both her hands, and then cupped my face. You know when you watch an athelete take smelling salts and their head whips back at a hundred miles per hour? Yeah, it was like that. Suzanna rubbed my scalp, temples, and jaw with this stuff before giving my nose another hit. There was no doubt I was awake now... and we proceeded with me in the front seat. Which of the three made the difference was hard to tell, but I felt much better quickly.

We drove through jungle villages, and stopped at a coca plantation. A predictable story was told. The farmers are not allowed to sell their crop to anyone but a single company (yay for the "free" market!), and at a set price (80 soles per 10kg). They are not allowed to bring their crops into any town outside of theirs either, where they could get a higher price for it (110 soles per 10kg). Of course, bringing it to town isn´t really the biggest temptation to the farmer. That would be reserved for selling it to people who plan on making cocaine from it (150 soles per 10kg). Coca growing is perfectly legal, as is coca chewing, and tea making, but making cocaine isn´t -- so such selling is of course forbidden.

Later when we passed through another small town to fill up on gas I snapped this shot.



By 9 we had finally gotten to the water. Much happened in between, including the purchase of the aforementioned rubber boots. We got on what Suzanna called a "canoe" -- but this was no canoe. I would describe it as a streamlined 30 foot by 5 foot wooden boat with an outboard motor and plastic roof to keep the sun off. We made our way down (northeast) the Rio Madre de Dios (mother of god river) for about four hours, and much birdwatching ensued. I didn´t mind, the views were fantastic from the boat, the ride supersmooth, and the breeze very pleasing.

This was the rainy season, but the sky was remarkably clear. One advantage to the rainy season (amongst others) we were told is the high water level of the rivers, making them easily navigable. Well we got a taste for what the dry season might be like when our skilled driver, Roy, ran us aground on some rocks in a very shallow stretch of water. I stripped off my jeans and got in to help push us out. There was me, Suzanna, Roy, his spotter, and a 74 year old man we were taking to work at Manu Lodge, out in the kneehigh water pushing the boat off the rocks, while the 3 senoir tourists looked on. Caroline got a picture of me outside the boat, but decided to zoom in on my face so you couldn´t see any of the context.... it did happen though. After about 15 minutes we were back on track.

After about four hours we stopped in the village of Boca Many to refuel and stretch our legs. There I met the parrot pictured leading this post and below. She wasn´t a pet of anyone, since she could fly (they clip the wings of housebirds), but she was very friendly. Suzanna invited her on her shoulder and she obliged, but then refused Caroline (likely due to her leopard printed rain jacket we suspect). Anyways I coaxed her onto my arm for the very touristy scene shown below.




After that we headed up the Manu river (northwest now), and into the reserve. The water changed from a clear blue now to a light, but opaque, brown. Still just birds, but some spectacular ones. We saw maybe 75 different species in total -- I´ll have to get the exact count from Carol via the internet later. We saw a ton of Macaws (red bellied, blue and yellow, green, and scarlet), as well as parakeets, a few toucans, vultures (black and turkey), herons, hawks, the roseated spoonbill (google it), and many more. My favourite was probably the hoatzin, which all sport a punk rock hair cuts.

Once we got to the lodge we wasted little time eating and going to bed. I slept well, mosquitoproof bednets provided, and charged my camera without having exhausted its supply the day before. Up at 530 we were told, and up then we got.



The third morning we walked from the lodge, about 30m, to the Oxbow lake it sits on, and got into a catamaran. Roy paddled us quietly around while we looked for the wild local residents. Much ado continued to be made of the birds. But, early on, we spotted a juvenile white caiman (pictured above), and were able to get quite close. It didn´t scare and after 10 minutes of observation we moved on.

Around 7, a highlight. We spotted a family of Red Howler Monkeys waking up in the type of tree they sleep in. There were 6 or 7 of them, and I stole Suzanna´s binoculars to watch. The mother was quite fat, and had her tail wrapped under her legs and slung over her shoulder while she preened. Others waking up, climbed neighbouring trees looking for breakfast. The Red Howler is one of the more rare to see species of the 13 found in the area, and are spectacular to look at. I was pretty pleased, if I were to have asked for 1 species of monkey to see this would have been it. We watched them silently for about 15 minutes from the lake below. It was great.

Paddling around half the lake we arrived back at 8, having taken in the caiman, some turtles, the monkeys, and again, a shitload of birds. In Peru there are a total of 1792 reported species of birds, about 20% of the world´s total varieties. This number is expected to jump to about 1800 within the next 10 years, barring mass extinction. A great number of these birds are found in Manu. Did I mention I was visiting the most biodiverse place in the world? And being over half the size of Switzerland there were only about 270 people in the whole area? If you discount indigenous tribes that number drops to 20. If you only count Westerners under the age of 60 it drops to 1. Now I know those who have gone to the Arctic circle, or Antarctica, probably have a whole lot on me when it comes to this kind of population density, or lack thereof, but it was still an interesting facet of the trip.

We returned to breakfast at the lodge at 8. Fantastic again and I filled up on the orange flavoured yogourt drink now with impunity. At 930 we went on a 2 hour hike through the jungle to find what we could under the canopy. I continued to take the cue from my elder peers and Suzanna and wear longsleeves, jeans, and a rainjacket to keep the mosquitos off (with the addition of my deet). This would be my last sojourn in this get up, as the heat became unbearable. When you couple that with the fact that mosquitos don´t like me (even, as I found out, in the midst of dense Amazon rainforest), it was a no brainer to be the ugly duckling of the group, in shorts and a t-shirt. We saw an incredible variety of flora, including many fruits that monkeys or birds had half eaten, and myriad strange flowers, vines, bushes, and trees. Colourful butterflies were common, as were massive insects, some half the size of my hand. We saw our second batch of Tapir footprints, but sighted none, nor did we see any wild boar whose tracks seemed to be everywhere. About 10 minutes from the look out point we spotted a pack of common? tamarins (monkeys) hopping around hte trees above. They were very shy and we only got a few good looks as they navigated their way out of view. The group went on, while I tried to take some pictures (they were quite close). No luck, though I´ll inspect my blurry canopy photos closely upon my return. I moved maybe ten feet up the path to get a better look, and there, staring right into my eyes, maybe 20 feet above, was an emporer tamarin (google it). The emporer tamarin is very distinctive from the other species, it is light in colour with red markings and has a huge long moustache (like an ancient chinese emporer -- or so from which its name derives). The other species of tamarin, which I can´t remember what they are called, are brown in colour. I only got about a 4 second look at him, but it was quite a sight.

I moved on and met up with the group.. we didn´t see anything else for the rest of the hour.

When we got back to the lodge we waited for lunch. I read in one of the common rooms while others braved the outdoor showers. Then, Suzanna ran into the room and called our attention to a group of wild black spider monkeys that were swinging through the trees above one of the complex´s buildings that houses the staff (of 3). We got a great look at the group of 3 monkeys as they effortlessly and acrobatically, often swinging from their tail, made their way through the trees. This sighting lasted about 20 minutes.

It was time for seista after lunch, too hot to go outside, and I took advatage of the cold showers. After reading Birds of Peru for a little while and digesting lunch I felt fantastic. Probably the best my body has felt this entire trip. Carol and Caroline, meanwhile, had contracted diarhhea. Not a day goes by in Peru without this issue. I savoured the good feelings.

At about 5 we went out for another round on the catamaran, to cover the other half of the lake. As we looked at the various birds the lake was overtaken by a roaring din. This was the afternoon howl of the jungle´s red howler monkeys. Let me tell you, it was loud -- despite being kilometers away. As we headed back along the bank to the lodge we spotted a single white fronted capuchin -- a small monkey similar to the kind you see on Friends and in Outbreak. As we watched it eat some fruit it was joined by another pack (maybe part of the same one seen earlier) of black spider monkeys. The group was maybe 12-15 monkeys big, including three mothers with babies riding on their backs. As the laggards made their way across a tightrope like vine (they all travelled about the same route) I snapped 3 shots (to be uploaded later!) of silhouted monkeys making the crossing. They came to a halt just over us at the top of a tall open tree (ie not a lot of upper foilage), where we could watch them unobstructed. Suzanna told us they were going to sleep in that tree for the night. We watched them swing easily around, socialize with one another, and the mother´s take some care of the babies. I say some care because upon a particularly long leap one baby fell off the back of its mother (only to grasp on its own a branch below). The mother didn´t seem to perturbed by this, moving on, and waiting for the baby to swing on its own over. The younger monkey couldn´t have been taller than a water bottle.

Satisfied and tired we headed back to the lodge for dinner and sleep. After all, we had to wake up at 430 to start the long journey to Puerto Maldonado. So to recap, 540, 4, 530, 430 were the times I had to wake up -- not even close to the itinerary.

At dinner we played an interesting game. Each player tells two things about themselves, one true and one a lie, and the others have to detect which was which. I went 4-0 in this facet. First was Caroline who said that a) she had a paper route as a child and b) she had scarlet fever. I guessed the latter, and was right, based on how I thought she would try and play the game. She listed a mundane fact with a more rare one, and her strategy was to throw us off that way. Colin was very easy. He said a)he had climbed the highest mountain in Europe and b) run a marathon. Caroline asked what marathon and Carol answered the London one. I wonder which is true? Carol was a bit trickier. Earlier in the trip she had mentioned that Colin and her had 5 children "between them", implying they were not all of both their makings. So Carol said she a) sang in a choir that went to old people´s homes and b) had been married twice. Caroline was tricked by the second, since she thought Carol was married twice based on the aforementioned piece of information...but then reasoned maybe Colin and Carol aren´t married. Colin had his hands under the table so looking for the wedding band wasn´t an option but I pointed out to Caroline that Carol could have in fact been married three times, which ended up being the case. The main strategic error here was in fact her listing something that seemed to be too obviously true given what we knew of her. Suzanna asked if she was a) of original Incan blood or b) of mixed "colonal" descent. I was the only one to pick the latter and be right. She stumbled when she said "Incan blood" and the tell was fairly obvious.

Now, the interesting part was how dumb I was in my selection. It seemed to me (then) that there were two possible optimal strategies -- say two very mundane things or two very outrageous things. When I mentioned this Caroline implored me to say the outrageous ones so I did. But when thinking of them I tried to pick statements that would be very hard to tell which was true and which was false -- ie of indistinguishable plausibility. 2 of the 4 chose correctly...and this is in fact what I should expect given my terrible strategy. After all, if it suceeds, and people just guess, you would expect half of them to get it!

How stupid of me. The real strategy is to design two statements such that people will overwhelmingly choose the false one, and in fact, making them of similar plausibility, while ensuring you don´t go 0-4 in trickery, does exactly the opposite of that.

There seems to me to be a further problem though, and that is that you have multiple opponents in this game, and they may be thinking on different levels (which if you can predict doesn´t end your worries). The 1st level is the same as the 3rd and the 2nd the same as the 4th. In other words, thinking statement A is false because of misleading thing x(but maybe he is trying to mislead me...but maybe he knows I´m thinking that) is the same as thinking statement A is false because of misleading thing x. Since you have multiple opponents, you can´t count on them all thinking on the same level (ie using the same trick to fool all of them)...in fact invariably you will have people thinking more deeply than others. Shallow thinker 1 will think on level one, while moderate thinker 2 thinks on level 2, deep thinker 3 thinks on 3 and genius 4 thinks on level 4. Now you have to design 2 statements such that level 1 for shallow thinker is the false one, level 2 for 2 is the false one, etc. Though to get someone to think on the 4th level in this game would take a fair amount of effort I would think. In sum, to design two statements such that all opponents choose the false one is in fact very very hard for a number of reasons.

While there were many things that happened along the way to my current destination I´ll just detail one. We left the lodge on day 4 at 530, and trekked through the jungle to the river, where our "canoe" waited. The sun was coming up as we boarded, and we began motoring along towards the same confluence of the Madre de Dios and Manu river we had come to before -- only this time we would continue east instead of backtracking west. All the while my peers searched the skies and upper canopy for birds, I watched the river banks and foilage for mammals. This was going to be our last chance to see a Tapir, Caiman, Cabybera, or Jaguar. In fact, I had done this type of scanning the whole trip, taking in the birds almost (but not quite) incidentally. Often when you scan you see logs that look like an animal. I would say during the 16 hours or so we travelled in the canoe this happened 100 times. The first 99 times it had turned out to be nothing.

Then, at 630, I spotted a strange shape along the river bank in the distance. My eyes could not make sense of it at first, as is often the case with these log-shapes. It was an unusual colour, a speckled yellowish, I hadn´t seen, and as we approached it became more curious. It wasn´t big, about two feet in diameter, and seemed roundish. Bobbing in the water and still 50 feet away it began to look like the usual plant moving in the water, reflecting off the water, that had played so many tricks on me before. I looked away.

But as we came to pass by it (the canoe covers 50 feet quite quickly) I, very luckily, happened to glance towards the riverbank again at that spot. And there at that exact moment, emerging from the water merely 15 feet away, was a full bodied Jaguar. "There!" I exclaimed and pointed to the bank... unfortunately Colin and Carol were in the seats ahead of me and turning around took up much time. Caroline was beside me, and while on the bank side of the boat, was similarly slow. The cat didn´t wait for spectators, as it rose out of the water and effortlessly climbed the 8 foot mud bank. Muscular and lean, it was dazzling in the morning light with its distinctive black spots on yellow fur. It shook off some water and quickly disappeared into the jungle -- its long tail in tow. What a sight! The top predator in the rainforest, fifteen feet away, if for ten seconds. Colin got half a look while Roy, our driver, was quick to turn his head on my command, getting a full view, and confirming to Suzanna it was that most sought after sight. An hour later when we signed out of the reserve at a government checkpoint I was obliged, apparently by law, to report my sighting in the visitor´s book. I obeyed grinningly.